Alex Goldhammer

If you haven't offended someone by noon each day, then you aren't marketing hard enough.

Make sure you don't retire from something but retire to something.

Perseverate

I can fly but have no wings. I can cry but I have no eyes. Wherever I go, darkness follows me. What am I?

A cloud

A sundial has the fewest moving parts of any device used to track time. Which device has the most moving parts?

The answer is an hourglass. Millons and millons of grains of sand pass through hourglasses.

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"Market interest rate" and "central bank policy rates" are related but distinct concepts in the field of economics and finance.

Market Interest Rate:

1. Market interest rates are the rates at which borrowers and lenders in the open market agree to exchange funds. These rates are determined by the supply and demand for credit in the financial markets.
2. Market interest rates can fluctuate based on a variety of factors, including inflation expectations, economic conditions, and investor sentiment.
3. Common examples of market interest rates include the yields on government bonds, corporate bonds, mortgage rates, and the rates on savings accounts or certificates of deposit offered by commercial banks.
4. Market interest rates are influenced by central bank policy rates, but they are also influenced by a wide range of market forces and investor perceptions.

Central Bank Policy Rates:

1. Central bank policy rates, also known as monetary policy rates, are set by a country's central bank (e.g., the Federal Reserve in the United States, the European Central Bank in the Eurozone) and are a part of the central bank's monetary policy toolkit.
2. Central banks use policy rates to influence the broader economy. They may raise policy rates to cool down an overheating economy and combat inflation or lower rates to stimulate economic growth and counteract recessions.
3. The most common central bank policy rate is the "policy interest rate" or "target federal funds rate" in the case of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Other examples include the Bank of England's "Bank Rate" and the European Central Bank's "Main Refinancing Operations Rate."
4. Changes in central bank policy rates can have a cascading effect on the broader economy, including influencing market interest rates. When central banks raise policy rates, market interest rates often follow suit, making borrowing more expensive. Conversely, when central banks lower policy rates, it can lead to lower market interest rates.

In summary, market interest rates are determined by the open market and influenced by a wide range of market dynamics, while central bank policy rates are set by a country's central bank and are a tool for managing the overall economy. Changes in central bank policy rates can impact market interest rates, but they are not the sole factor determining market interest rate levels.

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The only way to get someone to do something is love money or force.

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The sweet spot of worrying about other people's opinions is caring enough to learn from them, but not so much that you conform to them.

It takes humility to rethink your views in the face of disapproval. It takes integrity to put your personal values above social approval.

I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I'm confident that you can reach them.

If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

The Stranger

For now, it’s almost as if Maman weren’t dead.
After the funeral, though, the case will be closed,
and everything will have a more official feel to it.

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why.

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Discovery consists in seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

Embarrassed, I was forced to abandon my pompously jocular tone and descend to ordinary European phrases. This is a lesson for our Russian love of mockery. In the future, I will not judge a man by his lambskin papakha and painted nails.‍

--Novels, Tales, Journeys

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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition

Democracy in America

It is almost as difficult to be inconsistent in language as it is to be consistent in action.

Whenever a great change in human institutions occurs, the law of inheritance always figures among the causes.

I can’t bear quarreling, I can’t bear feelings between people — I think hatred is wasted energy, and it’s all non-productive. I’m very sensitive — a sharp word, said by a person, say, who has a temper, if they’re close to me, hurts me for days. I know we’re only human, we do go in for these various emotions, call them negative emotions, but when all these are removed and you can look forward and the road is clear ahead, and now you’re going to create something — I think that’s as happy as I’ll ever want to be.

The Boarded Window

Grief is an artist of powers as various as the instruments upon which he plays his dirges for the dead, evoking from some the sharpest, shrillest notes, from others the low, grave chords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil — he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you — and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Life is a message scribbled in the dark.

Perfection is Achieved Not When There Is Nothing More to Add, But When There Is Nothing Left to Take Away

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The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

Prison Notebooks